The most significant military development to touch Alaska during the interwar years was the advent of air power, an innovation that completely altered Alaska's strategic position. Suddenly the world became smaller as areas once thought safely distant from potential enemies became vulnerable. Nowhere was this more evident than in the Pacific, whose countless islands became potential advanced air bases. Indeed, it was the air power crusader General Billy Mitchell who aggressively fought to convince the War and Navy Departments to embrace the new doctrine of offensive air power. Mitchell came...

As a unique, distant geographical region of the United States, Alaska has evolved from military insignificance to high strategic priority in the 142 years since its purchase from Russia in 1867. The reasons for this dramatic shift derive from a correlation of geography, foreign policy, domestic politics, and military technology. Historically the role of the armed forces in Alaska has been large and diverse. Alaska was one of the two principal territorial purchases made by the United States between 1803 and 1867 adding nearly 1.5 million square miles to America's national domain. Smaller by...

The Second World War was to Alaska what the First World War had been to the nation. The essential reality of Alaska's experience during World War II was the end of its isolation from the continental United States. As a consequence of the war, Alaska's territorial era entered its twilight years, eclipsed by the dawn of statehood nineteen years later and driven largely by military imperatives. A further legacy was Alaska's inevitably significant role in the militarization of the Arctic, a strategic watershed that emerged in the postwar confrontation between the United States and the Soviet...